朝鲜的对话提议有诚意吗？Korean talks: breakthrough or false hope?

来源：FT中文网 2018-03-07 12:40

North Korea’s apparent willingness to engage in talks with the US about abandoning its nuclear weapons appears to mark a breakthrough in the crisis, but progress will likely be fraught with uncertainty, traps and trade-offs.

朝鲜表现出愿意就放弃核武与美国进行对话，这似乎标志着朝核危机的一大突破，但未来能否取得切实进展充满不确定性和陷阱，并需要进行讨价还价。

The Trump administration has made efforts to compel North Korea to give up its nuclear missile programme its top foreign policy priority since taking office, embarking on a campaign of “maximum pressure” through waves of economic sanctions and repeated threats of possible military action.

President Donald Trump was quick to hail “possible progress”, a cautious embrace from a US president who last year threatened to unleash “fire and fury like the world has never seen” on the Pyongyang regime.

“If the Trump administration wants an opening; this is it,” said Vipin Narang, nuclear strategy expert at MIT.

麻省理工学院(MIT)核战略专家维平•纳兰(Vipin Narang)表示：“如果特朗普政府想要一个机会；眼下就是。”

But while some admirers were quick to speculate that Mr Trump could be in line for a Nobel Peace Prize, the president himself warned of the risk of “false hope”.

不过，虽然一些崇拜者很快预测特朗普有机会获得诺贝尔和平奖(Nobel Peace Prize)，这位总统本人却警告了“空欢喜”的可能性。

Vice-president Mike Pence maintained a hawkish line, saying North Korea needed to take “credible, verifiable, and concrete steps toward de-nuclearisation” in a statement issued on Tuesday by the White House.

Jenny Town, North Korea director at the US-Korea Institute, said Pyongyang’s apparent offer was actually a previously used vague formula that owed more to efforts at detente by Seoul than pressure from the Trump administration.

“This is a serious proposal and it’s great that it’s coming from Kim but the reality is that this proposal is not new,” she said. “Yes North Korea is under more pressure but we’ve seen that pressure has led to more provocation — the fact that [South Korea president] Moon is willing to go and talk to Kim direct is what is new.”

North Korea has previously said it would give up its nuclear arms only if the US drops its “hostile” policy, an amorphous formula that has previously referred to demands including freezing US military exercises with South Korean forces; removing all nuclear weapons from the region, and the US giving up its alliance with Seoul.

Bruce Klingner, former CIA analyst, said the so-called breakthrough might also represent the hopes of “an over-eager South Korean president who is concerned about US preventive attack” or a “charm offensive on steroids” from Pyongyang rather than an honest proposal.

“We’ve seen the movie so many times,” said Mr Klingner, who has worked on North Korea for 24 years, citing eight previous failed agreements.

“这一幕我们见过很多次了，”研究朝鲜问题24年之久的克林纳说。他称此前有过8次失败的协议。

Others warned North Korea may be attempting a diplomatic ruse to buy the cash-strapped regime time to either pursue its nuclear ambitions or extract concessions on sanctions.

还有人警告称，朝鲜或许试图通过外交手段，为本国资金匮竭的政权争取时间，以继续追逐其核野心或者在制裁方面得到让步。

Wide-ranging UN and bilateral US sanctions have deprived North Korea of revenues by prohibiting sales of products such as fish, textiles and coal. The head of South Korea’s parliamentary intelligence committee believes Pyongyang could run out of hard currency by October.

“Washington should support improved inter-Korean relations so long as they don’t undermine sanctions,” said Kim Duyeon, a visiting senior fellow at the Korean Peninsula Future Forum in Seoul. “This peace offensive could be an insurance policy (for the North).”

“This can be an important occasion to pave the way for building political and military trust with North Korea as well as stably managing its nuclear and missile threats and preventing war," said Mr Cheong.

他说：“这可以成为一个重要契机，为与朝鲜建立政治和军事互信、平稳地管理其核和导弹威胁、防止战争铺平道路。”

Ms Kim believes the most important development following the South Korean delegation’s visit to Pyongyang is a promise to set up a hotline between the leaders of the two Koreas and use it before the promised summit next month because it could reduce the chance of catastrophic miscalculation.